Responsible Innovation: Moving Towards a Culturally Sensitive Approach

Abstract

Responsible Innovation (RI) recently emerged as an approach that addresses issues related to major social andenvironmental risks and uncertainties in complex innovations. At this stage, more inquiry is still needed to make theWestern-rooted RI approach more contextual and to facilitate its applicability in practice, especially in other culturalsettings. To address this issue, we propose a conceptual framework based on Hofstede’s dimensions of nationalculture and core processes of RI. We argue that the cultural dimensions are likely to play distinct roles in influencinghow these RI processes would be interpreted and operationalised in different societies with different cultures,illustrating this with some examples from Asian countries. Ultimately, the paper emphasises the importance ofevolving a broader, more comprehensive and mature approach to RI that takes cultural aspects explicitly intoaccount.